House Rowan of Goldengrove is one of the principal houses of the northern Reach, holding the rich grain country and the orchards along the river Mander where it bends through the heart of the realm. Like the Florents, the Oakhearts, and the Hightowers they claim descent from Garth Greenhand, their own line traced through his daughter Rowan Gold-Tree. The singers tell that Rowan Gold-Tree, bereft when her lover left her for a richer rival, wrapped an apple in her hair of beaten gold and planted it on a hill, and from it grew a tree whose bark and leaves and fruit were gold; her descendants raised a keep around the grove and gave the place its name, and golden-barked trees grow within the walls of Goldengrove to this day.
For thousands of years the lords of Goldengrove served the green-handed Gardener kings of Highgarden, and when the Field of Fire ended that line they bent the knee with their cousins the Tyrells and have served the rose ever since. It was at Goldengrove that the host of King Mern of the Reach and King Loren of the Rock had been mustering before they rode out to meet Aegon's dragons on the Field of Fire, a muster that ended the Gardener line in a single afternoon of dragonflame. In the centuries since, the Rowans have grown into one of the foremost Reach bannermen, holding lands that march with the dwindling Osgreys and the Webbers to their north and west, and a friendly rivalry with the Tarlys of Horn Hill for the regard of Highgarden.
Lord Mathis Rowan, who holds Goldengrove in the year A Game of Thrones opens, is reckoned among the more capable of Lord Mace's bannermen. He keeps his quarrels in the field rather than the wine cup, contends with Lord Randyll Tarly for the laurels of finest commander in the Reach, and has three children by his lady Bethany of House Redwyne. When the storm of the Five Kings breaks he will ride to Bitterbridge under Renly Baratheon's peach banner with the bulk of his liege's army, but for now the golden tree flies above Goldengrove as it has for ten thousand years, and Lord Mathis keeps a clear head and a careful tongue in the council halls of Highgarden.